Balikbayan Box
Today is Blog Action Day and you’ll see many blogs raising awareness about poverty. So today we’ll take a step away from the techie talk.
Beyond my basic understanding of poverty, I’d never been directly touched by real poverty until I learned about my wife’s family still living in the Philippines.
Outside
Kitchen
Living Room
They do okay for their area actually, but to me their conditions are awful. Especially when you see the little things the kids do just for fun. One “game” they play is to lay a rubber band on the ground and then smack their hands on the ground behind it to make it hop. The challenge is to see how high or far you can make it move. I really wanted to help out in some way. We have all this stuff they could use but we needed some way to get it to them. Luckily, my wife knew a way – a Balikbayan Box.
A Balikbayan Box is a loaded up box that is commonly sent back home to family in the Philippines from family living overseas (like my wife and her mother). There are special shipping services specifically for Balikbayan boxes to be sure they are shipped cheaply and safely because the Philippines is a bit corrupt and some packages and mail via regular channels won’t get to its destination. These services are easily found via local Asian groceries.
The Balikbayan can be filled with anything from clothes to potato chips. My wife and her mother put together a box once or twice a year to ship off and we collect things for the box all through the year. We’ll put all sorts of stuff into the box. Food and candy, clothing, kitchen utensils and food storage (big bug problem) and especially toys for the kids and books or comics to help them with their English learning studies. We’ve also included tools and pictures and even once a large salt lick for their cow. It’s not just about the stuff though. It’s about the connection between the family members. The pictures and letters we send with it are cherished more than the Ziploc baggies or the plastic bowling set.
Besides, how can you resist sending stuff to kids who are this cute and still happy despite what we would consider a deplorable situation:
For some more information about Balikbayan Boxes check out The Daily PCIJ post, an NPR report and a Washington Post article.
Remember… a little something for you may be a big something for someone else. You can set aside your own box to act as a Balikbayan for local drop off to Goodwill. Think of it as your recycling bin. Instead of pitching that McDonald’s happy meal toy in the trash throw it in that box. When the box fills up with stuff go drop it off and start a new one. It’s really not too hard to do and it can make an even larger impact than donating cash.
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That is great information. I’d never heard of this before. I knew lots of Filipinas in Hong Kong that sent money and packages back home to their families but I didn’t know that could be done from the States as well.
Here’s a note. If you want the box to arrive at a particular time (like the holidays), send it quite a bit in advance. The shipping time can take weeks.